1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to field device management apparatuses, and more specifically, to a field device management apparatus that places less of a burden on a worker who performs the same work for multiple field devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, operations of plants have been controlled on the basis of various data collected by elements generically called field devices. The field devices are provided in various sections of the plants, and include measuring devices, such as temperature sensors and flow-rate sensors, and measuring instruments for adjustment devices, such as valve opening-closing devices and flame regulation devices.
Field device management apparatuses are known as tools for performing, for example, maintenance of the field devices. The field device management apparatuses are configured as, for example, a personal computer (PC) that executes device adjusting/setting application software.
The field device management apparatuses are used to perform initialization for installing the field devices in a plant, maintenance while the plant is in operation, and replacement of the devices. The field device management apparatuses support industry standard protocols, such as BRAIN (trade name), FOUNDATION field bus (trade name), and HART (trade name), and are capable of unifying the management of field devices based on different types of protocols.
For example, when a field device installed in a plant is to be replaced, as illustrated in FIG. 6, a worker connects a field device management apparatus 300 to a field device 200 that is to be replaced. Accordingly, a device communication unit 310 included in the field device management apparatus 300 starts to communicate with the field device 200 to which the field device management apparatus 300 is connected, transmits a request for device information to the field device 200, and obtains the device information. The obtained device information of the field device 200 is displayed on a device information display unit 320.
When the worker selects the device information displayed on the device information display unit 320 and activates a device setting/adjusting function of the device setting-adjusting unit 330, device parameters are displayed on a graphical user interface (GUI) component called a device type manager (DTM) provided for each type of field device. Then, the worker can set initial parameters.
A device information management unit 340 included in the field device management apparatus 300 is capable of writing and reading information, such as device parameters, regarding the maintenance of the field devices 200 to and from a database 350. This function is used to store the settings of the field device 200 to be replaced in the database 350 and write the settings to a new field device 200. Thus, the field devices 200 can be exchanged.
As described above, the field device management apparatus 300 according to the related art has a function of communicating with the field devices 200, a function of allowing parameters of the field devices 200 to be set and adjusted by using the DTM, and a function of managing the device parameters and the information regarding the maintenance.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-158026 is an example of the related art.
In plants, multiple field devices 200 of the same type are sometimes installed or replaced at the same time. In such a case, the worker is required to perform the above-described operation for each of the field devices 200 and repeat the operation the same number of times as the number of field devices 200. This takes a long time.
In addition, with the recent development of intelligent field devices 200, information processing functionality with which parameter information can be set and referred to has been increased. Accordingly, the number of pieces of parameter information set for each field device 200 and the number of types thereof have increased. Therefore, a large number of various types of device parameters are displayed on the DTM screen.
As a result, when the worker tries to set or refer to a parameter of a certain field device 200, it takes a long time for the worker to find the desired parameter from among the parameters displayed on the DTM screen. This may reduce the work efficiency.